


Underlain

by windandthestars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Light BDSM, Penance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:03:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windandthestars/pseuds/windandthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you want, Will?”  She worries her bottom lip, forcing herself to keep her gaze level with his.  There’s still a lightness about him, one that invites her in despite the intentional distance between them.</p>
<p>“I want to know what you need.”  He whispers it like he would if his hand had crept up to tenderly caress her jaw despite the fact he’s still over there and she’s- she’s here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underlain

**Author's Note:**

> Set mid to late season 2.

> “You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.”
> 
> ― C. JoyBell C.

 

“What is it you want, MacKenzie?” He asks as her head tips to rest against his shoulder, her eyes never leaving the flaring ember at the end of his cigarette. He’s smoking as usual. The glass of whiskey they’re sharing held is in his other hand- his arm draped across her shoulder- swaying as he says her name in the way only he can. He says it like he’s talking to someone else humbly extolling her virtues. There’s a sense of pleasure in the word, even now, even after everything. MacKenzie.

She loves the way he says her name.  It’s nicknames that are dangerous with Will: hon, honey.  She’s had sweetheart thrown at her in anger too many times to count, but MacKenzie, she had always preferred MacKenzie.  Mac was fine, but to be his MacKenzie, not the proper no-fault MacKenzie her parents expected, that was something else.

“I’m sorry,” she says again for the second time that night, mournful, knowing he’s no more likely to hear her than he had been before.

“That’s not what I asked.”  He presses, still lazy, but there’s an edge to his voice now, a firmness she doesn’t like.  She doesn’t want him to push her away.  She doesn’t want to leave.

“It’s cold out here.”  She says not to evade him but because she knows he’ll laugh.  It may be October, the threat of snow growing greater with each passing hour, but it’s still warm enough for him to sit out here in the middle of the night to take in the view.

“Inside?”  He chuckles and she frowns, shifting closer, firmly entrenching herself in the picture of their life she had been painting. 

“Inside,” he repeats more seriously and she pulls back reluctantly. “We need a refill.”  He softens realizing perhaps that the explanation would have been better suited to their conversation thirty seconds before, two minutes before.  He guides her through the door with a hand on her shoulder.  “Do you have a preference?”

“No.”  She doesn’t.  She’s not interested in the drinks or the occasional cigarette.  She’s not here for any of that, although it’s always the pretense she uses to get through the door.  Late night, can’t sleep, she always says with a hint of a smile, toeing the smooth line between the door and his apartment.  She wants to talk about work, about life, about anything but this.

He heads farther inside and she follows along, taking the glass from him when he hands it off.  The scotch surprises her, the smoky liquid raising an instinctive cough as it slides down the back of her throat. 

“What is it that you want, Mac?”

Her eyes water as she glares at him.  “Fuck, Will, you could have warned me.”

“You’re all right.”  He seems unphased, taking the glass from her when it’s in danger of slipping from her grasp.  “Now could you answer my question?”

She hadn’t set out to goad him, emotional manipulation never went over well with Will, but the impulse is there, words flowing free without enough forethought.  “Do I have to have to have a reason?”

“You always do.” 

He twirls the glass through the space between them while he waits.  She’s holding his gaze, but the steadiness of his stare unnerves her.  She’s exhausted, moments before blinking had meant the real possibility of falling head first into sleep, now she was standing here, throat burning, trying to figure out how to explain to him that she wanted the same thing she always wanted.  There’s no way to simplify it more than she already had, especially knowing there wasn’t a lot of second chances with Will. 

“Tell me that you hate me.”  The words rush out and for a second she considers trying to take them back, but Will doesn’t look offended.  He doesn’t even look surprised, in fact he almost looks amused.  “You always were stubborn.  You never would let anyone help you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”  She’s holding steady, watching as he drains the glass and sets it on the bar with one final flourish.  “You spend your nights slowly killing yourself with all this crap.”

“Only when you’re here.”  He says, a rogue smile promising something she has yet to uncover.  “A drug for a drug.”

She knows he must mean her, but he’s being intentionally vague, leaving her to draw her own conclusions as dangerous and unsatisfying as that can be.  He’s not trying to rile her, but he is.  She can feel her skin warm, the tendons in her fingers tighten.  He’s poking at something neither of them can see, but he seems to know the shape of it, the contours of this conversation, better than her.

“What do you want, Will?”  She worries her bottom lip, forcing herself to keep her gaze level with his.  There’s still a lightness about him, one that invites her in despite the intentional distance between them.

“I want to know what you need.”  He whispers it like he would if his hand had crept up to tenderly caress her jaw despite the fact he’s still over there and she’s- she’s here.

She takes a step forward, the bitter tang of blood on her tongue as she presses her lips firmly together, keeping quiet long enough to listen for the inhale of his next breath.  It comes as she draws up before him, close enough to touch him but far enough away to resist resting her forehead against his shoulder.

“I-“ she says because she knows she needs to say something.  “I-  Will, I-“

He reaches out, his hand on her arm not her face.  He’s holding her here.  She looks down at the tiny circles he’s drawing against her sleeve as his voice drops farther, slipping toward velvet but holding firm.  “Let me help you, MacKenzie.”

MacKenzie.  She sighs shakily, cursing him.  He’s always known how to crawl inside her head when he needed to.  She draws closer, both of them slipping through space toward the corner of the room.

She doesn’t dare refuse him, but the words she needs are rapidly disappearing.  She flattens her hand against his shoulder resting her forehead against the ridges of her knuckles.  She’s trembling despite his warmth, trying desperately not to cling to him.  She nods.  A quick tip of her chin and she feels his lips press against the crown of her head.

“Stay here.”

He shifts her hand free from his shirt, pressing it firmly against the glass of the table, keeping her upright.

He disappears.  The vibration of his body fading from from skin as the distance between them widens.

She’s never had patience, neither of them have.  She’s always loved that about him.  They could both manufacture a convincing imitation of the art, but time like this always passed too slowly, filled with too many anxious heartbeats and the fluttering of fingertips against her thighs.

Cupboard doors open and bang shut.  It’s past three am but he’s not concerned about the noise.  It must be nice she thinks, not to worry, but then she remembers all the other times, the way he had hushed her or carefully caught a door before it closed.  It isn’t the hour, but the task, he’s thinking of.

She shivers.  Being the singular focus of Will’s attention had its own perks and hazards.  Step carefully, she warned herself knowing it was already too late.

“Take your pants off.”  He’s returned with a tub, rectangular, its edges blunted by curves, the plastic pitted, its frosted surface hiding its contents.  Her heels drop to the floor with a sharp clank, first one than the other as she moves them aside and steadies her stockinged feet on the cool hardwood floor.  Not longer leaning, she’s standing more firmly, fingers carefully working at tiny clasps and zippers.

It’s been years since Will has seen her naked, but she doesn’t hesitate.  Even now there’s something familiar in this unwrapping, in the shedding of burdens.  It’s a game of hide and seek, tantalizing glimpses and carefully constructed armor.  They’ve been playing it for two years now at the office, the rules never extending here to this realm, but she finds them no less fitting as fabric pools dark and nebulous at her feet.

She lingers with her fingers tucked into the elastic at the top of her stockings.  He hadn’t told her to remove them, but she’s already lost her shoes, and there’s no point in ruining perfectly good hosiery.  The stockings go.  She looks over at him, a brief flash of the whites of her eyes under dark lashes.  She’s expecting to see hunger in his eyes, some form of expectation, but despite the way her skin flushes under his gaze, he appears unchanged.  She’s morphing into someone else while he stands there wholly and completely Will.

Her fingers start their ascent up the row of buttons on the front of her shirt.  Small and curved they slip through her grasp time and again until he stills her, his hand pressed against the plain of her stomach.

The shirt hangs, brushing the top of her thighs, rustling against the fabric of her underwear.  It doesn’t hide much, but even one of his oversized shirts wouldn’t hide the quiver in her thighs as her knees weaken at the sound of tub being opened.

It’s nothing but the sharp pop of plastic but it’s enough to leave her momentarily struggling to draw in air.  Her head swims, rushing as she draws in a quick gasp, the sound obscuring the quiet rush of sand against the floor. It’s not until the tiny grains slide to rest against the tips of her toes that she notices Will has emptied the container onto the floor.

“All right.”  He offers and she blinks at him, startled by the rush of sound.  There’s no instruction, no guiding motion as he steps back to lean against the wall.  She brushes a mound with her foot, smoothing it out, and realizes the grains are too large, too coarse to be sand. 

Grits she realizes, squatting to gather a handful of the yellow hued masses: corn, sweet and starchy, dried and vaguely powdered.  Her tongue flicks out, picking up a few grains.  She lets them sits, rolling them around her mouth before spitting them out onto the back of her hand.  She dumps the remainder back onto the floor and kneels.  It seems like the logical thing to do when something is presented at your feet, a rug, a bench, a swath of grits.

She feels the first prickles of pain, sitting back on her heels, looking up at him.  She’s heard about this.  Sloan once, had mentioned rice, but nothing had prepared her for the fiery ache that builds as she shifts her weight forward, kneeling properly.

Seconds tick by; the nervous twitching of her fingers returns, intensifying.  She feels her shoulders tense, her fingers curl around the hem of her shirt as she forces a breath out through her noise.

She trembles, fists pulled tighter, wading up silken fabric.  She feels her weight shift, her shoulders tipping forward before she forces her back straight, her chin up.  She’s watching him.

Her stomach aches; held taut against the quivers sending spasms through the rest of her body.  The back of her throat burns. 

All the pain is in her knees.  She lets her eyes slip shut, swallowing, refocusing.  She breathes.  The pain isn’t going anywhere, but she ignores it, pushes it away.  She watches him watching her with an even unemotional gaze.  She returns it, feels her bottom lip quiver.  She bites it, hard, removing the temptation.

She doubles over once, her face contorted in a mask of unshed tears, her palms smarting from their impact with the floor.  She could give up, lean back, instead she forces her back to straighten, keeping her fingers flexed and free at her sides.

Loose strands of hair stick damp to her temples, brushing teasingly against her jaw.  Her thumbs press into the tops of her thighs, bruising.

She whimpers, the first of a stream of tears slipping down her checks.  Her arms tremble rag doll weak at her sides.  She wants to stop but the force of will it takes to keep from crying out, from sobbing, is enough to rob her of the opportunity.

She falls again, palms and elbows connecting with the floor this time.  The burning eases as she shifts her weight, reacquainting herself with the tiny shards of glass that have sprung up beneath her.

She bites her lip, gasping over and over, but it’s not until Will slips a hand around her shoulder and pulls her onto her side that she has the presence of mind to move away.  She’s lost, floating here in the empty space, the warmth of his chest, the comfort of his arms.

She yelps and then yells as he brushes yellow grains from her skin, tears finally flowing free.  She sobs as he rocks her, holding her close, brushing her hair from her face so it doesn’t choke her as she gasps for air.

He’s a bastard, she thinks when he laughs, muffling the sound in her hair.  Stubborn, she thinks she hears him say and she smiles, a nebulous upturning of her lips that prompts him to wipe the tears from her checks.

He won’t ask her if she’s feeling better.  She wouldn’t stand for that, even now.  He won’t ask her if she’s all right.  He will, however, send her home with a bag of frozen peas and a wad of cash meant for the flared skirt she’ll wear to the office tomorrow.

“You do it to yourself, MacKenzie.”  He mutters, still tender but less indulgent.  “I would never ask you-“

“You did.”  She cuts him off angrily, the ache of his words, the lie of it more bitter than her tears had been.  “You stood there.”

“Because you ask me to every day.”  His voice is still soft but it’s firm, steely now that she’s quieted.  She wants to argue but she knows they’d past the point for listening when he’d opened that first cupboard door.  “In the beginning it was easier, but now, god Mac.”  He growls in frustration, arm tightening around her shoulder.

He buries his face in her hair and the tension seems to leave him.  She’s beginning to ache from the hold he has on her, the awkward position she’s in, but she stays where she is, knees still red and smarting.  She leans against him, shooing away thoughts of work, breathing.

Carefully she catalogues the feelings, not to compare, not even to remember, but to know she’s feeling them: the weight of him beside her, the softness of his t-shirt against her cheek, the smell of his cologne faded almost to nothing by this time of night.  His fingers tangle in her hair, brush along her jaw, drop back to her shoulder.

Outside the skyline comes into focus.  It hasn’t changed, but time has past, dawn approaches.  She yawns and wiggles away.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Today.”  He smiles at the correction and she shakes her head as she gathers up her pants.  He may be right.  She’ll see him today and not tomorrow- Saturday, another night that often saw her here half drunk and all too sober.

“Good night, Will. I-“  It’s her turn to smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling.  “Goodnight.“ 


End file.
